In the field of semiconductor device technology, silicon nitride films may be utilized during the fabrication of semiconductor integrated circuitry. For example, silicon nitride films may be utilized as an insulating material during the fabrication of semiconductor device structures, such as, for example, transistors, memory cells, logic devices, memory arrays, etc.
Common silicon nitride film deposition processes require high temperature deposition, i.e., around 600° C. to 800° C., to attain the reaction between precursors such as dichlorosilane (DCS) and ammonia (NH3). State of the art device structures may not be able to withstand such a high thermal budget, which may further result in a deterioration of device performance and may cause device integration problems.
An alternative solution to high temperature deposition processes may be to utilize a plasma to activate the precursors which may in turn allow for low temperature reactions and reduced deposition temperatures for silicon nitride films. For example, plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) processes may be utilized to deposit high quality, conformal, silicon nitride films.
However, the low density of reactive species generated by common nitrogen precursors utilized in silicon nitride PEALD processes may result in long plasma exposure times for high quality films. Accordingly, methods are desirable for increasing the population density of reactive species from the nitrogen precursors utilized in silicon nitride PEALD processes to reduce deposition time and substrate throughput.